Jeanne D'Arc: her life and death eBook

Dunois, who was too wise to weaken the forces at his
command by such a quarrel, is said to have done his
best to reconcile and soothe the angry captain.
This, however, if it was true, was only a mild instance
of the perpetual opposition which the Maid encountered
from the very beginning of her career and wherever
she went. Notwithstanding her victories, she
remained through all her career a peronnelle
to these men of war (with the noble exception, of
course, of Alencon, Dunois, Xaintrailles, La Hire,
and others). They were sore and wounded by her
appearance and her claims. If they could cheat
her, balk her designs, steal a march in any way, they
did so, from first to last, always excepting the few
who were faithful to her. Dunois could afford
to be magnanimous, but the lesser men were jealous,
envious, embittered. A peronnelle, a woman
nobody knew! And they themselves were belted
knights, experienced soldiers, of the best blood of
France. It was not unnatural; but this atmosphere
of hate, malice, and mortification forms the background
of the picture wherever the Maid moves in her whiteness,
illuminating to us the whole scene. The English
hated her lustily as their enemy and a witch, casting
spells and enchantments so that the strength was sucked
out of a man’s arm and the courage from his
heart: but the Frenchmen, all but those who were
devoted to her, regarded her with an ungenerous opposition,
the hate of men shamed and mortified by every triumph
she achieved.

Jeanne was angry, too, and disappointed, more than
she had been by all discouragements before. She
had believed, perhaps, that once in the field these
oppositions would be over, and that her mission would
be rapidly accomplished. But she neither rebelled
nor complained. What she did was to occupy herself
about what she felt to be her business, without reference
to any commander. She sent out two heralds,(1)
who were attached to her staff, and therefore at her
personal disposal, to summon once more Talbot and
Glasdale (Classidas, as the French called him) de
la part de Dieu to evacuate their towers and return
home. It would seem that in her miraculous soul
she had a visionary hope that this appeal might be
successful. What so noble, what so Christian,
as that the one nation should give up, of free-will,
its attempt upon the freedom and rights of another,
if once the duty were put simply before it—­and
both together joining hands, march off, as she had
already suggested, to do the noblest deed that had
ever yet been done for Christianity? That same
evening she rode forth with her little train; and
placing herself on the town end of the bridge (which
had been broken in the middle), as near as the breach
would permit to the bastille, or fort of the Tourelles,
which was built across the further end of the bridge,
on the left side of the Loire—­called out
to the enemy, summoning them once more to withdraw
while there was time. She was overwhelmed, as